4 Tips to Extend the Life of Your Outdoor Gear 

When fall wraps up, many outdoor adventurers tuck their gear away in a closet for the winter. But did you know that improper gear storage can reduce the life of your gear? Failing to take steps like letting gear dry before sticking it in a closet can cause issues like premature deterioration of fabrics. Packing your tent or sleeping pad with lingering debris can cause rips as well. Fortunately cleaning, drying and properly storing camping gear can greatly extend the life of your beloved outdoor gear.    1. Keep Your Outdoor Gear Clean Outdoor gear is made to withstand harsh environments, but that doesn’t mean you should skip the cleaning process when you get home from your trip. Packing your gear away with debris and sediment can cause premature wear and…

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Snowshoe Sizing: How to Pick Your Perfect Length 

Aside from bringing a thermos with a hot lunch or drinks, one of the easiest ways to ensure a great time snowshoeing is to make the right choice when considering snowshoe sizing. One of your snowshoes’ most important jobs is to provide “flotation”, keeping you from sinking too deeply into the snowpack. The amount of flotation you need is what drives your choice of snowshoe length. A bigger snowshoe means more surface area, which, in turn, means more flotation. Generally speaking, the “right” snowshoe is one that delivers the flotation you need, while being small enough to keep you nimble on the trail.    Here are some quick tips to help you make the right choice in snowshoe sizing: First: The Majority Rule When considering the following variables, it’s easy to get bogged down in the thought that you want a snowshoe that does…

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Mastering High-Altitude Cooking: Essential Tips for Success 

High-altitude cooking can be challenging, even for those who know their way around a quality camp stove. The thin air, cold and wind of cooking above treeline can complicate even basic tasks, like boiling water, so you can forget about creating complex dishes above treeline without the right gear. The reality is that some stoves just aren’t built to burn well in the alpine zone.  Preparing for a high-altitude environment before you head out is one of the best things you can do for yourself. Fortunately, there are ways to maximize the efficiency of your high-altitude cooking kit. Here’s what you need to know to set yourself up for culinary success at high elevations.   Understanding the Challenges of High-Altitude Cooking Did you know that water boils at a lower temperature at high altitudes…

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Make the Most of Your Stove: MSR Stove Accessories

While the idea of “accessorizing” something might sound a little superfluous, MSR stove accessories are anything but. In fact, our engineers can work for years on a single design. That’s because each one needs to not only work in concert—and safely—with our camp stoves, but also needs to do so in a way that improves either efficiency and/or performance in a meaningful way.  No stove can “do it all”, so many of these accessories are engineered to extend a stove’s performance into extreme or rare conditions, while others simply allow greater convenience, versatility or efficiency. So before you start thinking about a whole new stove, or figuring out how to extend your fuel supply on a long trip, check out this comprehensive guide to MSR Stove Accessories and see just…

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The Ultimate Guide to MSR Fuel

You’re psyched. You just bought an MSR® camp stove—the undisputed gold standard for everything from expeditions and extended road trips to casual backpacks and a weekend of family camping. In that process, you likely considered what type of fuel you wanted your new stove to use: liquid fuel or canister fuel. Now that you’ve made that primary choice, you may find yourself wondering a host of questions, from finding compatible fuel away from home to basic use tips to make the most of your stove or stove system. So, here’s a soup-to-nuts compendium of the most common questions we receive about MSR fuel to keep you going no matter where you want to be. What is MSR IsoPro™ Fuel? MSR IsoPro fuel is the magic sauce inside our fuel canisters….

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Thru-Hiking Stoves: DIY or Buy?

The hole punch sank its teeth into the aluminum side of a cat food can, chewing a hole through the wall. My ventilation system was complete. I’d just created a “cat stove”–a do-it-yourself backpacking stove–while sitting in a dank motel room along the Appalachian Trail. With a little bit of denatured alcohol, I had a new way to cook my food, and it only weighed a few ounces. After hiking for several weeks with a wood-fueled stove, I made the discovery that some environments are incompatible with wood-burning stove systems, and that in a well-trafficked corridor like the Appalachian Trail, it isn’t always ethical to collect wood anyway. These findings prompted me to observe other backpacking stoves when hikers gathered at the shelter for dinner. Some hopeful thru-hikers lugged around…

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In Terms of Backcountry Water Treatment, When is Water Considered Safe to Drink?

Brown, silty streams, tea-colored rivulets, even clear, ice-cold lakes—any backcountry water source can serve up a cocktail of contaminants. But not everything that’s present in an undeveloped water source is necessarily harmful, and only some things pose an immediate threat to your health. In fact, it’s impractical and unnecessary to remove everything, all the time. So in terms of backcountry water treatment, when is water considered safe to drink? First, what’s commonly in backcountry water? The types of contaminants that make water “dirty” depend a lot on that source’s surrounding environment. But most contaminants can be placed into these categories: Microorganisms- Simply put: tiny bugs or germs. Microbes are the primary focus of treatment devices because of their immediate and potentially serious risk to your health. The pathogenic ones include…

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